


I’d rather stay here, with all the mad men

by dorcas_gustine



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-14
Updated: 2010-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:47:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorcas_gustine/pseuds/dorcas_gustine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And I'd rather play here/With all the madmen/For I'm quite content they're all as sane as me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’d rather stay here, with all the mad men

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers for 2x08!!!**  
> Betaed by m31andy.  
> The title and summary are from (yeah, you guessed) Bowie's _All the madmen_.

Sam wakes up gasping in the darkness and manages to calm down only when he takes in his surroundings and remembers he's in his bedroom.

In 2007.

Sleeping.

Or at least he would be, rather peacefully even, having jumped off a building and gone back to 1973. And everybody was alright because he'd saved them, and he kissed Annie, and Gene was okay, and Chris, and Ray.

Jesus.

Jump off a building in 2007 and go back to 1973. Kill yourself now and live the rest of your life in a fantasy world thirty years in the past.

What scares him the most, though, is that it was a _dream_ – and quite a pleasant one at that – up until the Test Card Girl. Only then did it turn into a nightmare.

Suicide.

He thinks about it from time to time and it scares him.

But it absolutely _terrifies_ him that sometimes it appeals to him.

 

*  
**  
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*

 

"How was your week?" his mother asks, smiling at him from the other end of the table.

He smiles back at her and ducks his head, pretending to be shy about his happiness and hiding the fact that he's not happy at all. "It was good," he says.

"Now don't lie to me," she tells him with sweet, motherly reproach and, for a moment, he's afraid he's let something slip, but she adds, "I know it must be difficult to go back to work after such a long time."

He breathes in relief, and mentally kicks himself for panicking, because she has no way of knowing what is really going on in his mind. She doesn't know of his fantasies, of 1973. He's told nobody, not even the doctors. He tells himself it's because they would probably keep him off work if he did, but when he's willing to admit it to himself he knows it's because he doesn't want the confirmation that it's all been in his head.

"Yes, it is," he says. "But I'll manage."

His mother nods and they continue the meal in silence.

 

*  
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***  
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*

 

Sam has started precisely eleven suicide letters. He's counted them.

And precisely eleven have been tossed in the bin.

He tells himself he can't do this to his mother.

He tells himself it can't be that simple.

 

*  
**  
***  
**  
*

 

Ever since he's woken up, he lives his life as if by proxy.

It's like being outside his body, watching himself get up, eat, work. Like suspended animation, like a coma. It's ironic really.

Very few things manage to reach him and he's acquired an air of detachment that's started a rumour at work. Apparently, after his hospitalization, he had a mystical experience and he's now a Buddhist or a Zen master or whatever.

He supposes they're right in a way, even if he doesn't know if he'd define 1973 as anything mystical.

He goes through the motions and, if he stops and thinks about it, nothing has really changed from before, except for the fact that now he _knows_ what it's like to really live your life. And if he's learned that from a coma fantasy, well.

He's perennially distracted, as if he doesn't care, and maybe that's why he doesn't see the car when he crosses the street on his way to the coffee shop.

He doesn't feel the impact.

 

*  
**  
***  
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*

 

The first thing he notices when he opens his eyes is that he's in a hospital.

The second thing he notices is that it's a _seventies_ hospital.

There's something bubbling in his chest and suddenly a laugh he didn't know he had makes its way through his lips and explodes in the silence of the room.

He could weep with happiness because he can feel the roughness of the sheets where they scrape against his bare arms and he feels the IV itching on the inside of his elbow.

He feels.

He tries to sit up, he doesn't know how much he's spent lying down, but he's definitely sore.

He can't though; his wrists are tied to the bedrails.

 

*  
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***  
**  
*

Hours later, he doesn't know precisely how many, Annie comes to visit him.

And it's a shock because the last time he saw her was in a dream and they were kissing. And he remembers being hit by a car, for real this time, and he knows that this is still a fantasy, that she doesn't exist, but the ache in his chest, the nostalgia, the yearning for her, those feelings are _real_.

"Sam," she says, and she's frowning, her face a mixture of relief and pity.

He knows why, it's the same reason he's still restrained.

"Annie," he breathes, and he can't believe it. "_Annie_."

She finally takes the few steps that separate them and bends down, gathering him into an awkward embrace. When she comes away, her eyes are bright.

He smiles at her, or tries to considering the circumstances, and wishes he could touch her. "What happened?"

She frowns at him, and he moves his hand to indicate the room and his condition, and hopes she understands.

"You don't remember?" she asks.

He shakes his head no, the doctors haven't told him much, but he knows he's been unconscious for over four days now and they don't really know why.

"The last thing I remember," he says, closing his eyes and calling back the memories, "is the train. Johns shooting at you and then…" he shakes his head. "Nothing."

Beside him Annie takes a deep breath. "That was three weeks ago, Sam."

 

*  
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*

 

Apart from Annie, nobody comes to visit him for the next few days, and there's a terrible feeling of foreboding squeezing his insides, every time he thinks about them, his people, his _friends_. Whom he left to die in the middle of nowhere, being shot at, with no hope for back up.

He remembers Annie's screams, Gene shouting his name, Chris as he was hit in the shoulder, and Ray, and wishes he hadn't been that stupid, that _blind_, not to see what he was leaving behind. And maybe he's gone back to reality, and maybe it wasn't healthy to go on living in a fantasy, but Sam doesn't care about healthy anymore, he just wants to know he's alive, and he doesn't care if he's so alienated from reality that he needs a fantasy world.

He's worried about them, because he's betrayed them and, for all he knows, they could have died. But Annie's still alive, isn't she? And she looks okay, and if this is his fantasy, things should go the way he wants them, right? And he certainly doesn't want them dead.

He still hasn't asked Annie, because when she comes to visit him, she just sits there, and there's a wall of silence between them.

"_My beautiful boy_," his mother whispers brokenly into his ear, and he's glad she isn't crying over the grave of a suicide, but next to the bed of a comatose accident victim, and he's disgusted he even thought it.

But apparently he's a selfish arsehole in both reality and fantasy and, as he lays there on the bed looking at the ceiling, absorbing Annie's presence next to him and his mother's presence thirty years in the future, he thinks of those eleven letters and wonders if he left one here for them to find.

 

*  
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***  
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*

 

"You shot him," Annie says one day, when he's finally being released, as she hands him his clothes.

He frowns. "Who?"

"Johns," she says, and turns around when he starts putting on his trousers; flared, _seventies_ trousers.

"I came back, then," he says, breathing in relief. "I saved you."

"Yes," she says. "Everybody's all right."

He nods. "You can turn around."

He reaches for the leather jacket she left on the bed, then looks at her, the question pressing against his lips. He doesn't ask though and just shrugs his jacket on.

"What happened, then?"

"You told the Guv about…" she trails off, looking to the side. "About DCI Morgan."

Right. He should have guessed. Even if this is his fantasy, his subconscious wouldn't let him forget about his betrayal. It's fair, in a way, as he wouldn't trust himself after something like this, either.

"What's gonna happen, then?"

She shakes her head, "I don't know. You and the Guv were building a case against him," she says. "To bring him down."

"Because he left us to die," Sam finishes for her. Working undercover to take down Gene, amnesia, and now working to bring Morgan down, and this is beyond confusing, this is insane.

But it's all right, he is insane, after all.

Annie nods, "But then you…" she trails off.

He presses his lips together, and nods, he managed to betray them again.

Sam Tyler – Williams? – seems capable only to disappoint the people who love him. It doesn't matter if they're real or not.

"So they don't trust me, then?" he asks, finally, nodding to the room and alluding to their noticeable absence over the past few days.

"It's not like that," she replies, but there's a hesitation in her voice.

 

*  
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*

 

Back at his flat nothing has changed much.

The microscopic bed – if you could even call it that – his clothes in the wardrobe, cups left to dry above the sink.

His bathroom is clean as well and, by the way Annie adverts his eyes when he looks back at her, he knows it's only because all the blood has been washed away.

 

*  
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*

 

His next stop is The Railway Arms.

It takes him the better part of a hour to gather up the courage to get out of the car and venture inside.

Nelson, thank God, doesn't even bat an eyelid; he just leaves a pint in front of him and smiles. Sam smiles back.

He doesn't look at them, but he can feel their eyes boring into his back.

Chris is the first to approach him with the excuse of coming to the bar to get a refill for all the people at the table. He haphazardly drops the empty glasses on the bar and nods to Nelson who comes to the rescue.

Sam's noticed that he mostly uses his left arm, moving the right one stiffly and gingerly, and it makes him queasy because there's something about Chris being injured, being shot, that feels unnatural to him.

They remain like that for a long while, Sam's grip on his glass progressively tightening, Chris gazing straight ahead and resolutely not looking at him.

Chris finally breaks the silence. "You alright, Boss?" he asks, hesitantly.

"Getting there, Chris," he replies, and it's the truth.

 

*  
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*

 

Two days later it's Ray, apparently it's his turn to buy a round for the table.

He just leans over the bar, his arm in a brace, and looks at him up and down, his usual sneer still present, but tuned down.

"Annie told us you don't remember," he says.

Sam nods because he remembers shooting Johns, but he also remembers kissing Annie, and he remembers everything being all right. He remembers driving away and bantering with Gene. But that was just a dream, wasn't it?

Ray tosses some coins on the bar and nods to Nelson. "One for the Boss, as well," he says, then he takes the glasses and leaves.

Sam takes the new pint Nelson's put in front of him. "To second chances," he says and drinks.

"It takes time, mon brav," Nelson says, his eyes going beyond him, to the man looking at Sam from the table, where he's sitting between Ray and Chris.

"_Wake up, Sammy_," his mother says into his ear, hospital machines beeping and hissing far away.

"I've got nothing but time," he tells him.

 

*  
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*

 

A week later he's about to enter The Railway Arms to continue this see-saw of glances and silences, when it occurs to him that maybe he should be the one starting the conversation.

Because he's had it easy until now. Annie has come to him, Chris has come to him, _Ray_ has come to him. But he can't ask this of the Guv, after all he's put him through.

So he pushes past the door and walks to their table, his steps wide with a certainty he doesn't really feel.

He stands by the table right in front of him. Ray and Chris look up, but Gene doesn't. He's staring at his Scotch, turning the glass in his hand.

"A word," he says. "_Gene_."

Finally, the Guv looks up and fixes him with a long, penetrating stare. He nods, firmly and curtly and stands up, Ray and Chris making way for him.

Outside, they sit on the bonnet of Gene's Cortina. Gene is smoking and evidently waiting for him to start the conversation.

The moment of truth then.

"I'm sorry," he says.

Gene nods, thoughtfully, and stares ahead. Sam knows this isn't finished, but he doesn't know where to go from here. He looks expectantly at him.

"For what?" Gene asks, finally.

He frowns, "For Morgan. For…" say it. "For betraying you, for leaving you there."

"You came back, though," Gene says.

"I…" he trails off, then admits, "I don't know what you want me to apologise for, then."

Gene turns to look at him and searches his face for a moment, then he looks away again and shakes his head. "You really don't," he snorts, almost in bewilderment.

"I trusted you to do the right thing, Sam," he stands up, the car lifting slightly as his weight slides off the bonnet. "And in the end, you did."

"But that's not it, is it?"

Gene raises an eyebrow at him, and flicks the cigarette away and he suddenly notices that there's something missing from this picture.

"Where's your coat, Guv?"

Gene looks at him. "Tossed it away," he says. "Couldn't get the bloodstains off."

 

*  
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*

 

It's closing time and Gene stumbles out of The Railway Arms, considerably more pissed than he had been when he got in earlier.

Sam gets out of his car and crosses the street to reach his side. "You found me," he says.  
Gene sniffs and squints at him.

Annie and the doctors told him only bits and pieces and he doesn't remember anything, but it must be true.

"You found me," he repeats, his voice hitching. "In the bathroom."

Gene reaches for a cigarette and his hands are trembling.

"I'm sorry."

Gene snorts loudly. "You sliced your arms up to the elbows and you're sorry!"

Sam grimaces. "I guess…" he starts, but doesn't know how to finish.

Then he remembers all those times he's actually thought about it, he remembers those eleven letters he's destroyed and tossed away, and maybe like doctors screwing up his dosage, or the voice of his mother, that's something that has carried over.

So he decides to go with the truth. "It looked like the only option at the time," he admits quietly.

"Bollocks!" Gene exclaims, but there's something breaking in his voice. "It's not even an option."

"_You were doing so well_," his mother says, and she's crying.

"I'm sorry," he says again, to both of them. "I'm a selfish arsehole."

Gene snorts. "That you are, Gladys."

Sam smiles, softly, and bumps his shoulder. "Come on, Guv, I'm driving you home."

"If you think even for a moment you're gonna drive my car, Tyler, think again."

"You're pissed, Guv."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am _not_."

 

*  
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*

The following day, they arrive together at The Railway Arms and they both sit down on the stools.

Gene slams a hand on the bar. "Nelson! DI Tyler here is buying me a Scotch out of the goodness of his heart!"

"Am I?" Sam asks, but he grins anyway.

Nelson puts the glasses down, "God's in His heaven," he says. "All's right with the world."

"Amen to that," Gene says and downs his Scotch.


End file.
